Cleveland According to the county elections director, voters will be pleased with the move as the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections will hold its inaugural election from its new offices.
Director Anthony Perlatti stated on Monday that the relocation is a major improvement over its former site.
At a news announcement held at the new site on Monday, Perlatti declared, “Much bigger, much brighter.” When people enter the place, they will be astonished. Once more, it is a huge improvement over where we were.
Seven wards in Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, East Cleveland, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, and one precinct in Lakewood are included in the move, which is made ahead of the municipal primary election on September 9.
Tuesday marks the start of early voting in a number of those primary election battles.
The new early voting center is around 11,000 square feet in size, while the old one at 2925 Euclid Avenue was only 7,000 square feet. Located on Superior Avenue between East 18th and East 21st streets, the building was once home to cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
During a press conference on Monday, Perlatti stated, “The space, the amount of space, really just allows us to do so much more.”
According to Perlatti, that advantage might be significant for the elections in November.
It’s encouraging to see an increase in early in-person voting. “And I think we’ll see more people coming because they want to check it out and they like the process,” he added of the new facility.
Parking is one of the main enhancements to the new location. Voters can now utilize more than 70 parking spots, as opposed to just over 40 at the previous location.
Additionally, a separate accessible voting parking lot with ADA-compliant curb cuts and designated spots nearer the building entrance is available at the new polling location. For more significant elections, such the 2026 midterms, a parking structure on the property might be used. Parking is safe and free everywhere.
For those of you who have been following our elections for some time, we never knew exactly which parking lots we would rent from one election to the next to get people to park, Perlatti added. Here, that isn’t the case.
Voters will have more room inside the facility to cast their ballots. According to Perlatti, the larger voting room offers better sight lines and better voter movement. During larger elections, line queuing can take place indoors in the spacious atrium outside the polling room.
About 25% of county voters are impacted by the September 9 primary, which is not countywide and is held at 67 polling places spread over little under 200 precincts. Voters are given only one ballot style in its nonpartisan municipal primaries.
Compared to similar elections four and eight years ago, the board anticipates a turnout of roughly 20%. Election authorities will use mail-in applications to track voter turnout, according to Perlatti.
The progress of the vote-by-mail application procedure will be one of our markers of how we’re going to perform. We processed roughly 1,700 ballot applications. There were roughly 18,000 legitimate vote-by-mail votes for the full race four years ago. There is still a long way to go. I’m not sure if we’ll succeed in this election, but it doesn’t mean people won’t vote, Perlatti remarked.
Early in-person voting will begin on Tuesday and run through August 29 at the Board of Elections office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.
Applications for mail-in ballots can be obtained on the Board of Elections’ website or by contacting 216-443-VOTE (8683). Additionally, all public libraries have these. Applications for ballots sent by mail must be submitted to the Board of Elections by 8:30 p.m. on September 2.
Information for this story was organized using artificial intelligence.
